"Battle of Wittstock info....." Topic

Greetings all. I'm trying to pin down some info on this battle, in particular I'm looking for an OOB.

So far I've come up nil in Web searches. I'm hoping someone can suggest a book that covers this battle or at least a good Web page.

Thanks for tips.

Some info from Wikipedia:

link

On that page an article by Steve Murdoch:

link

This text is in German:

link

but if you try Google Translate that will probably help.

Have you tried the Nafziger OOB – it's only the Swedish Army (you'll have to risk the 'unsafe' link to get to the pdf – I have without problems) at link:

PDF link

There are also OOBs in Guthrie's 3rd volume on Battles of the Later Thirty Years War but I don't have those electronically. If you really can't get it anywhere I could try scanning in the appropriate pages and sending them as images if you let me have your email address.

PS I have no idea how accurate these are.

Try
PDF link

Unless you read German or Swedish you are out of luck when it comes to books. (And even if you do read one or both the books in question are either expensive or hard to find or both except for "1636 Ihre Letzte Schlatcht" ("1636- Their last Battle")which you can get from Amazon.de However "1636" does not have detailed information on the Orbat, it looks at battle in general but the main focus is the 120+ soldiers recovered from a mass grave in 2007 and their experience of the war.

Wikipedia uses Guthrie's numbers, Guthrie followed the lead of Delbrück who did not like the idea of a significantly smaller Swedish army beating a German one and therefore inflated Swedish numbers while decreasing the size of the Imperial-Saxon force. However the Swedish pre-battle muster list survives so the size of the Swedish army is known in detail from a primary source.

Murdoch provides some very useful stuff such as a number of original reports complete with translations into English when necessary, but he also make exaggerated claims about historians neglecting the part played by the Scottish commanders King & Leslie. (Every significant Swedish study of the battle includes the parts he describes as being "usually altogether absent".)
I have posted the Swedish order of battle at my blog: link

I don't have a detailed order of battle for the Imperial & Saxon armies ready to post at the moment but you can find one that was based on my research and that of other here in the playbook for the boardgame "Sweden Fights On" PDF link

This is my (very) old ordbat for the Imperial & Saxon armies
The Imperial Army.
CinC: Fieldmarshal Count Melkior von Hatzfeld (?)
13000 Foot
7000 Horse
The Right Wing: Fieldmarshal Count Melkior von Hatzfeld
1st Line (All squadrons are imperial)
14 Squadrons of cavalry
2nd Line: (All squadrons are imperial)
14 Squadrons of Cavalry
The Battle: Marazini
1st Line:
6 Brigades of foot each of about 1000 men
Reserve of the 1st Line:
5 Squadrons of cavalry
2nd Line:
7 Brigades of foot each of about 1000 men
Reserve of the 2nd Line:
6 Squadrons of cavalry

The Left wing: Johan Georg of Saxony
1st Line (All squadrons are Saxon)
13 Squadrons of cavalry
2nd Line: (All squadrons are Saxon)
11 Squadrons of Cavalry

Advance guard:
10 Squadrons of Cavalry (Dragoons?)
The Artillery:
42 Guns of various sizes., at least 10 regimental guns

After the battle Conrad Mardefelt (a Swedish military engineer present at the battle) drew a detailed but in parts confusing map of the battle. It can be found in a digital version online at the Swedish National Archive link
The extensive battle field archaeology done at Wittstock has shown that despite the odd perspective Mardefelt's map is remarkably accurate in its depiction of the terrain where the bulk of the battle was fought. The further it gets from the main part of the battle the less certain Mardefelt gets as he would have had to rely on the account of others rather than his own observations.
A couple of modern day maps of the battle will be posted on my blog as soon as I can get hold of a working scanner.

Wittstock is a bit of challenge as a wargame as it was a true meeting engagement. The Imperial army had deployed in a strong, partly fortified position on the high ground behind Papenbruch, not wanting to try a frontal assault Baner decided to turn the Imperial position on both flanks. When the vanguard of the Swedish right wing was spotted Hatzfeld tried to intercept them with what ever troops he could rush there to block the Swedes. Rather than fighting in proper order of battle troops were thrown into the fighting as they appeared. Hatzfeld had no idea that the Swedish left wing was moving to attack him from the other direction until they charged into his troops from the rear.
In a classic tabletop re-fight that begins with the armies in their starting positions you will either have to handicap the Imperial side with a lot of "McClellan-rules" or the battle basically becomes impossible for the Swedes as any manoeuvre on their part will be spotted coming a mile away.

As "McClellan-rules" are rather unfun my suggestion would be to start the battle at the point where Baner was discovered as he was moving to the turn the Imperial-Saxon left flank. The bulk of the armies will appear as reinforcements, preferably in a somewhat random manner as that is how the units appeared in the actual battle. The Swedes should have the advantage of their reinforcements arriving in larger groups (i.e Leslie arrives with his entire wing at the same time) but Vitzthumb should be difficult to bring on while the Imperials should get a stead stream of reinforcements, some in smaller groups other such as part of their infantry in a large one. The arrival of King and the Swedish left wing will also be random, the Imperial player will know that they are coming but not when. His challenge is to win the battle before they do.

Wittstock is also unusual in that there was extensive fighting in the forest which covered a large part of the battlefield. The forest should not provide cover or bonuses against artillery fire, Raimondo Montecuccoli who fought in the battle use it as an example of why one should not position infantry in woods. Artillery fire had knocked down branches as well as whole trees on top of the struggling infantry brigades which had caused both casualties and disruption.

Thank you all for the good food for thought.

Daniel S, amazing as always, thank you Sir.

Uesugi,
You're welcome :) There will be an Imperial-Saxon order of battle posted on the blog sometime between now and the end of September. I have books with additional information sitting on my bookshelf and a proper orbat would be a good companion post to the Swedish one.

Amazing blog Daniel, read through it yesterday.

@Daniel S, a quick question about your Swedes list.

The first 7 infantry units (regiments?) under Fieldmarshall Johan Baner don't list specifically what they are.

Would these be Commanded Shot, or Pike and Shotte regiments, or something else all together?

Thanks again.

They are all cavalry regiments, I have rewritten that part of the order of battle to make that clear. I forget at times that the native regimental titles or nicknames in Swedish are not common knowledge.

Also added a note about one of the colonels in Baner's wing who was the son of Gustavus Adolphus.

Unless noted or mentioned in the unit name all "Swedish" units are German. (There might be one or two additional native Swedish or Swedish-German infantry regiments present but it is hard to trace the units in this period, the name of the colonel is not a clue to nationality of regiment and some officers had commanded native units in 1635 but then switched to German units in 1636.)

I have a question, how would the native Swedish/finish cavalry be dressed? In the classic wargaming way with Swedes in just buff coat and hat and finish in their style or would some armor be used?

Thanks for the clarification Dan.

Gunfreak,
No buffcoats except among the officers, large scale use of the buffcoat is not in evidence until the 1670's (with a couple of exceptions but those are all post-30YW).

Swedish & Finnish cavalry would be wearing identical styles, more than once they are mistaken for the other by eyewitnesses including men like Monro who was serving with them as an officer in the Swedish army.
Armour is a difficult question, we do know that the army in general had discarded a lot of armour during the extensive marching of the 1635 campaign but the native regiments were either at home in Sweden/Finland at that time or serving in the armies raised to defend (east) Prussia and Livonia from a Polish-Lithuanian attack. And we have a eyewitness description of cavalry in Prussia which describes the Finnish regiment he saw as having armour.

In the end there was no war with the Poles as the truce was extended by a new treaty which saw Sweden give up occupied Prussia. This allowed the troops there to be sent to Germany were Baner was in great need of reinforcements. So in the case of Wittstock I would have the native cavalry in wool coats with breast & backplates, possibly with helmets. The 'old' German regiments on the other hand should probably be in buffcoat only as they had not had any access to a resupply of armour as far as we know. 'New' German units such as the Baltic-German Livonians and Courlanders is anyones guess.

Thanks, Daniel

So for some generic Swedish/Finish cavarly for the 1630s-1640s

Cavalry with breast and backplate and helmet, but with cloth instead of the buff coat would work?

Something like this

The Swedes sold elk hides for state revenues and most 'Swedish ' troops did not wear buffcoats at any period of the TYW. Of course officiers and 'german' recruited units could be exceptions.

Gunfreak,
I'm afraid it is not that simple, the native cavalry used a distinctive helmet which took it's inspiration from the kapalin style helmet used by some Polish-Lithuanian hussars. Also Swedish native cavalry did not have carbines, carbines were expensive so Gustavus abolished their use in the native regiments before restarting the war with Poland-Lithuania in 1621.

You would also have to remove the "wings" on each shoulder as they would not be present on the wool coat. (Also coats would be longer and have a wider fullness than the compact buffcoat shown on this figure.
link

So there doesn't exist any figures appropriate for Swedish cavalry?

1st Corps has them in 28mm, IIRC Old Glory 15's had proper ones in 15mm as well. Or you could just focus on figures in hats, even when the troopers did have helmets they did not always wear them. But as often is case with TYW figures you have to look for figures with the least amount of errors rather than getting "perfect" ones. For me the carbine was a bigger issue than the helmet when I collected TYW since there simply was no figures with the correct helmet being sold at that time in 15mm. Coat lenght and shape is less of an issue in the small scales I use compared to big 28mm as well.

Daniel,

Would the Swedish cavalry have worn the kyller in 1655-1660?

The German regiments certainly had them to some extent but I have yet to find firm evidence that the "Indelta" native regiments did. Early historians like Bellander have assumed that some regiments had kyller based on battlepaintings but today we know that the paintings reflected the fashion of the time they were made rather than 1655-60. Written documents are silent as far as I know and if we look at later evidence kyller is regarded as a new thing when the Livregiment (ex-Uppland cavalry) was issued them in 1673.

Grey zone is the enlisted Swedish cavalry regiments and units such as the Adelsfana which in theory was supposed to be better equipped than the ordinary regiments.

So there doesn't exist any figures appropriate for Swedish cavalry?

Swedish Cavalry for Breitenfeld

Daniel,

Please may I ask what you make of the plate in volume 2 of Brzezinski's work for Osprey at C2 showing a Swedish cuirassier of Tott's regiment. The figure is shown as wearing a sleeveless buff coat. Is this consistent with what you say above because the plate shows an ensign who would have been an officer, whereas a trooper would not have worn the buff coat?

Thanks in advance.

Tott's regiment was a German unit, the 'Swedish' part of the name refers to Montecuccoli describing that level of equipment as typical of 'Swedish Cuirassiers' in a 1643 document. (He was of course speaking of contemporary Swedish troops rather than equipment 10-12 years earlier.)

German units certainly included men wearing buffcoats, they are common enough in period artwork. However the buffcoat was not sleeveless, rather the sleeves were made of cloth such as silk or a silk blend which has rotted away on surviving buffcoats. But a close inspection will reveal the holes left by the seam that attached the sleeve to the body.